Thirteen Years Well Spent
What was school like for you? This podcast chats to young adults about what, from school they use in life and what they have learnt since. In the cumulative stories of real people, lets find out if school is doing as it claims - prepare young people for life.
Thirteen Years Well Spent
8 Jazz
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Jazz wants teachers to know about neurodivergence and how to support it in ways that are respectful and helpful to the people in the room. She has some great ideas, some of which come from less than optimal experiences.
But also just listen to the kids and believe them. Like you're gonna have kids that are telling lies because, you know, they want special attention, but 90% of the time these kids actually need help so believe them instead of just pushing them off to the side and saying, I don't believe you.
SPEAKER_01Like We spend 13 years at school. Is it well spent? This podcast offers a platform to school leavers to tell us about how their 13 years at school has or has not prepared them for life. Guy Claxton wonders if young adults would say it is 13 years well spent. I'm Susan Taylor, a teacher of Japanese and leader of languages, but this is not about me or any of the organizations I am, have been, or might in the future be associated with. I invite any young people, 18 to 30 years, to contact me if you would like to share your experiences. Was it 13 years well spent for you? Simply email thirteen years well spent as one word, with thirteen as a word, not a number, at gmail.com. Before we start, some acknowledgments. I acknowledge the Ganai Kernai and Bunnerong people as the traditional owners of the unceded land where I live. I appreciate the knowledge and stories of all First Nations people and thank them. I would like to thank my partner, Gary Wakeling, for much joy in our life and for the beautiful intro and outro music. And I am most grateful to the stars of this podcast, the fabulous school leavers who have been willing to share their experiences and thoughts with such depth and vulnerability. And not least also to you, the listener, who has chosen to spend this time with us to understand and consider how these stories might mediate your thinking about school-based education. Our guest today is Jazz. Jazz went to a primary school in a government school in Regional Victoria until grade three. Then a Catholic school in the same area for grade four, five, and six. For secondary school, Jazz went to a Catholic school in regional Victoria. Jazz is now 20. So, Jazz, overall, do you think your 13 years at school-based education were well spent?
SPEAKER_00I think they mostly were. Of course, I had to learn things about reading and writing all the basics in primary school, and I learned that. And I think in the older year levels, maybe I could have done some things differently. But overall I think they were.
unknownCool.
SPEAKER_01Good to hear. Please tell us about your school experience. Let's start at primary.
SPEAKER_00So primary school, I obviously started government school, and in grade three, once NAT plan results came out, I got picked up with dyslexia. Uh-huh. And then I moved to a different school. I moved to a Catholic school because I had more resources to help me. And that fast-tracked my learning quite a bit because I wasn't, I think because it was a small primary school, they didn't have enough resources to help children that learn like me. Yeah. And then I got to high school and I was pretty good for the first couple of years. And then as the stress got and the schoolwork got harder, that's when I started to my dyslexia started affecting me more. Yeah. And because when I'm stressed, it gets worse. Yeah. And I also had problems with I my files didn't get transferred across. So my teachers weren't believing me. But then in year, I think it was 10 or 11, I actually had a panic attack in my scythe class because I had teachers telling me that when I was trying to read, I was saying to them I can't read this, they won't believe in me. They're thinking I was just making stuff up. And my psych teacher was amazing. She helps me get retested, and then after that, it was a lot better for me. And I actually had teachers helping me rather than just seeing me off to the side.
SPEAKER_01Wow, I am so sorry that it took a panic attack for you to be believed. That's really sad to hear. Can you describe what the difference was before they were believing you and what sorts of things were going on, and then after they started to believe you?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I really had trouble, especially reading out loud, um, because I would skip words, or I have this thing where instead of seeing words or letters, I'll see spaces and lines. So when reading out loud, I wasn't able to see the things and I'll just be spluttering over words which would make me anxious, which would make it worse. Yeah. And then I'll have, you know, all the students looking at me and the teacher being like, you have to read it, or doing presentations in front of the class is another big thing for me, even though I can dance in front of like hundreds of people. I can't like speak in front of like 20 kids. Yeah. So once the stuff with my dyslexia came out and they started believing me, I what didn't have to read Adelaide in class anymore. I could just do my presentations in front of a teacher, or if they didn't have time to do that, I'd fill myself and send it in. Okay. So it really helped. And also I had a really special couple of teachers that really took me on board and helped me. And instead of giving me all the work at once, they'd kind of drip feed me, which would help with the stress because I wasn't looking at a big page of paper with all these instructions, I was only looking bits at a time. Yep. All my homework would be different. I had this amazing psych teacher, and instead of giving me read homework, she'd give me diagrams because I've got a pictorial memory. Uh-huh. So by looking at diagrams, labelling, and doing it that way, I was able to remember a lot more stuff.
SPEAKER_01Amazing. So it the differences that like the stuff the teachers did to make it easier for you was not that big a deal from their point of view. But for you, it made all the difference. I just wanted to drill into this a little bit further because teachers are frequently told you need to make adjustments, and sometimes it's not obvious to teachers what that means, and it feels like, oh my gosh, I've got this massive workload because I've got this child, this child, this child. So the adjustments that you needed were first to, where possible, create diagrams or label diagrams and do work around that knowledge building through the diagrams, to give instructions one piece at a time rather than large instructions, and to allow you to not be in front of the class, particularly when it's reading something, but to do that work either in front of the teacher or through filming yourself at home, which meant you could do retakes and things and pause and really be in your own space and not create that anxiety.
SPEAKER_00Did I miss anything? Yeah, so another thing that was put on my file, not a lot of teachers here, which I understood, but um I've got teacher glasses, which help a lot. Yep. And sometimes the teacher would also print out instead of just a white sheet of paper, they'll print out an orange or black background white words, which also helps a lot because it meant I wasn't just seeing a bunch of white lines, I could actually like see a bit more. And I also had, if I didn't want to wear my glasses, because they're quite obvious, I'd have a little orange plastic sheet to put over the words, and that also helps a lot because my eyes could see it better and my brain was able to process it better. How did you know to do those things? So when I was first got diagnosed with dyslexia, mum did a lot of research and took me to an optometrist in Lane Lane, and they gave me the glasses. And it was funny because when I got the glasses again, and I think I was in year 10, starting year 11, completely different, they were orange. I was first starting off with purple, and now my eyes and my brain must have changed, and now purple and blue makes it harder for me to read. I need like really dark orange to be able to read. Uh-huh. So I talked about that with once I got the results back again for the second time I got glasses. I talked about that with my I think it was the learning support officer, and told her, and then she was able to write my file, and also like told the teacher practically if I need if I forgot my glasses to let me go get my glasses and stuff like that, so I was able to read. Sometimes it's the simplest things, isn't it? Yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I'm interested in the breakdown thing. So you said your psychology teacher was particularly good at doing this. So, how did that teacher break down the thing so that you were able to access that learning?
SPEAKER_00So she would give me the task, but instead of being like, okay, do this, this, and this should be like, okay, start with this. Say I need to do a slideshow and an oral presentation or something like that, should be like, start with this bit of the slideshow, then do this, and then afterwards, after a week, she can focus on the presentation. Also, I had another really amazing um spawn rep teacher, and I was away for I think two weeks because I got quite sick during the 12. But when I came back, everyone else had done this like this massive presentation thing, but he broke it down and he he didn't tell me any of the other stuff before. That was another thing I struggled with. If I got all information, I had to break it down, I'd procrastinate from stress. He just told me like bits and then he wouldn't tell me the rest until I'd finished that, and then he'd tell me more. That really helped. And he also extended my deadline.
SPEAKER_01Right. On a practical level, how did I I know it's nitty-gritty, but so you would do let's go with the slideshow example because that's really interesting.
SPEAKER_00You would do the first instruction, yeah, which would be well, usually it would be find your links and do your research and then write dot points, and then after that it'll be write more.
SPEAKER_01Okay, pause, pause. So once you've done those dot points, you would then take it back to the teacher and say, What do I do next?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, something like that. Or I would like put information, check with the teacher, and then go back and then do a bit more. So it should be like, okay, now you've got to make sure you add photos, and then after that, make sure we give presentations, like kids readable, and then um references after that, usually. Like what have like because you'd have to do proper references when you go to VCE. But just break it down things like that, or with homework as well, like do this bit, you can do this bit tomorrow, and things like that.
SPEAKER_01So, overall, with that support, did you feel successful in the later years at high school?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I did. Um, some teachers were amazing at it, other teachers, because they must have got taught about it, didn't do it or kind of ignored what needed to be done, but that was okay because by that point I kind of figured out my own ways of learning and how I needed to learn, which was tough because I had to do a lot of that by myself. So it kind of differed from class to class.
SPEAKER_01How is that working now? So, in your life post-school, are you still using the orange filters? Are you still able to break down those tasks for yourself and and work out how to do things so that you're functioning as well as anybody else?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, definitely. So I still wear my glasses. They also help with like headaches and that kind of thing because my eyes take in too much information, so I was getting a lot of headaches throughout school. But um, yeah, so I still do that, I still break down tasks to myself. Also find that if I need to remember something, repeatedly reading out loud to myself helps. Okay. So if someone else struggles with removing stuff, that definitely helps. Um, so I still use those techniques today. Yep. And for example, I did a um a course at the start of the year for acro, which is like dance. Uh-huh. And I know from my experience in year 11 and 12, like throughout high school note taking is super important for me. So I made sure to take a heap of notes. Yep. So I'm still using those things I used in high school now. Yeah, cool.
SPEAKER_01I want to jump into primary school now because you said that in primary school you were picked up fairly early. Yeah. And then what happened? What what sorts of adjustments were provided at that at primary school level?
SPEAKER_00So when I was before I got picked up, I had speech pathology. So that was like prep to grade two, I think I had speech pathology. Yeah. Year three, when I got picked up, um, the teacher I had didn't really understand. So he wasn't the adjustments he was using were things like putting me outside the classroom instead of kind of helping me. He would give me I can still remember some of the words like dog, cat, and bird, and they're like little laminade sheets of paper, and he would make him sit outside the classroom, kind of just ignore me and read them over to myself. And I could only do those words, so it kind of made me feel really dumb because I didn't understand. I just got like I was young, so I'm not diagnosed with this thing. It was making me sit outside the classroom. And the other thing he would do instead of try and teach me times tables, he'd give me zero times tables, and that went on for ages, so just things like that. But once I got moved to a school that had proper help, um there I used to go into a classroom, I think, once every couple of days with some other kids who were also struggling. And I can't really remember what we did, but we worked a lot on sentences and that really helped, and that kind of thing. But it was interesting because we actually had a new principal come in, and then when she came in, she kind of cancelled out all of that like support. Oh, and no one really knows why. But so, but by that stage, I I was able to do all those things by myself, so I kind of got the help I needed, and then for the rest of the primary school, I was kind of good. I don't really rarely have some things where it like really bothered me, like for example, like PAT testing. Yep. Always had trouble with that. Um, NAT plan again was funny, but just things like that, especially when I was getting tested, was when it showed up a bit more. Yeah. But because I had that a couple, or I think I had like a year and a half of tutoring within school, that really helped me.
SPEAKER_01So you're talking so far more about how the learning worked, which is exactly what I asked for. What I'm curious about now is how your self-esteem sort of went up and down in some of that. I'm guessing there was a little bit.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so during primary school, I say I I was okay. Like grade three was very up and down for me because I like grade two as well. I remember being stuck on the same reading level. I think I was like level eight or something for ages, and then everyone else was on like level 30. Yeah and getting made fun of for that.
SPEAKER_01Are the kids or the teachers?
SPEAKER_00Um, kids, but yeah. Can you do something about it? She used to make fun of me for the reading level I was on. Oh. Which was really horrible looking back on it because I didn't understand. And even my prep teacher, she would get really cross with me because I couldn't write my name properly, I'd get all the letters backwards. She's like, make you stay in for recess and lunch. So that definitely affected my self-esteem. But because I was so young, I didn't really understand. Yeah. So I wasn't too bad at it. It's more when I got to, I reckon, year nine, and that's when I started really having problems again with my reading. And I was trying to say to teachers, I'm like, I can't read this. Like and wouldn't believe me. I got to year 11 and I was like really struggling. I was trying to say to like my English teachers and stuff, I'm like, look, I can't do this. I know what you want me to do, but like that's what kind of caused the panic attack. I think can't really remember, it was a bit of a blur, but I think I got some results back, and I'd worked super, super hard, and it just wasn't showing me my results, and the teachers were just thinking, Oh, she's just stupid, like and um, and then after that I got tested, and then I don't know after that my self-esteem just kind of plummeted, which because I wasn't getting good results, and I just stopped caring about school to be honest, and year 12 was really rough yeah because I just I didn't have any motivation anymore. Yeah, and I literally I just had like this like one teacher saying like the ed support saying he can't give up. It was kind of too late because I'd had those couple of really rough years. And I also um V Car, like the exam people for my exams, they didn't actually give me the um recommended what's it called? You know, the it's not the special, like the I forgot the name, but like for example, extra time and stuff. Okay, special considerations? Yeah, special considerations. So they gave me um extra time, which I actually had to fight for, and they gave me rest breaks, but I was supposed to be in a separate room and all this other stuff. I think if I also maybe got diagnosed with depression or something like that, which I didn't have, but if I'd say I did have, I had friends with that that got a lot more than me. Interesting, even I have a learning disability, so I really struggled being in a room with a lot of people that because that also I felt like I was being judged because like people did say stuff to me about my classes, even when I was in Euro 11, like people still made fun of me, which is ridiculous because we're like 16, 17 should know better than that. Um so that also really kind of picked up my self-confidence because I wasn't getting the results I could have been getting because I was under a stressful environment. But I will say I did have this really good physics teacher in year 10, and he did a test, like a written test, and I think only got like 30% on it. And he was like, hang on, you're getting all the classwork right. Why did you do so badly on this? Yeah. Gave me the test for the same content but different way, reading the different way, diagrams. I've got 90A's from it in the Wow Yeah, and he figured out like, okay, so you learn differently, so you need different tests, exact same material, just diagrams, that kind of thing, very visual, not as much words. Yeah. So he was also very important in because that was before he was one of the teachers that believed me that actually had dyslexia because he had previous learning difficulties himself. So he picked up on that fact. So he was really integral, helping me in year 10. Amazing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, amazing, amazing. It really, really goes to show when teachers are told do adjustments. Yeah. It really makes huge difference to that person, not just in their schooling time, but how they move through life and how they have that sense, their self-image is really impacted. Um, I'm not sure that we we as teachers can do like we try to do stuff about not bullying kids and so forth, but as a teacher, you can't always pick up everything. Yeah. And the kids do that. I'm sorry. Yeah. Okay, I'm gonna move now to post-school life. And the question is, did school prepare you for life?
SPEAKER_00It did in some ways. I did learn a lot of resilience, and of course, I learned like the basic you need to learn how to read and write. Yeah, right. So it did prepare me. I got a lot of resilience, of course, from everything that kind of happened. I think that they could probably teach us a bit more about taxes and that kind of basic things like that. But I think that's kind of been a big, not issue, but big talk for years now. So that's one thing I would say that I would say.
SPEAKER_01Jump further into that because that's something that's coming up a lot.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I don't remember ever being taught about taxes, like um, I'm trying to think about like mortgages. I don't remember being taught anything about that through high school, especially on the old year levels. I feel like it's really important that especially for kids who don't have a great home life and need to move out as soon as they kind of can, I feel like it's important to blanket teach all those important things so those kids have an opportunity of a better life. And especially if you don't have like, say your parents are split up, your mum's busy all the time you live with your mum, you don't have those chances to have those conversations with her, it's hard to sit down on a computer and like do it yourself. So if you got taught about that, and especially in year 12, like how to do a superannuation and all that kind of stuff, I think it'll help a lot of students, especially after they graduate.
SPEAKER_01I'm hearing that from a few people already. So it's kind of a theme that's already starting to come through. And the people that are talking about it as saying this has to be compulsory, so we'll just say blanket, if that's what you mean. Um, and it needs to be in the later years, which is hard from a school's perspective because we're so jammed with the curriculum at year 12 and so focused on those ATA results and trying to do the best by everybody. It's hard to imagine, even a subject which has got those financial life skills in it. So to clarify you for saying tax, just generally understanding how to do a basic tax. Right. Um and understanding mortgages and understanding the other one that's come up, tell me if this is for you as well, is things like how credit cards work and what the impact of that is, and how to make A basic budget for yourself and that sort of thing.
SPEAKER_00For sure. Yeah, that's definitely another thing that needs to be touched on because yeah, we didn't really learn about it. We did some kind of things in math, but we didn't really learn about it. It was more just very curriculum math-based, which also won't get through to a lot of people because if they don't understand math, they're not going to understand how that works. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so that's a clear message coming through. Um, what have you learned since school?
SPEAKER_00Uh well, obviously I've done more, so like other training. So I did a ed support last year for three TAFE. That was about a nine-month course. So learned a lot of important stuff about that, like um how to teach and like different teaching techniques, workouts and safety, all that kind of thing you need to learn before you uh go into that field. Also learn dance and stuff. So I've learned more skills from that. I've learned yeah, how to more techniques to help other people, which has been really amazing. And I love doing all of that, so yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so tell us about what you do post-school.
SPEAKER_00So I started this year at a little primary school, and I'm an education support officer, I think the full name is. So I help, I help every year level apart from three fours in primary school. So I go throughout the classrooms, and usually I'm in one classroom a day. And I help the teachers, I help the students. So say the students need help, I'll I can wander around or sit with a couple, or if the teachers need help, I can do like laminating, cutting out, that kind of thing. So I'm kind of all around help. And I really love doing that because the reason I got into that was to help kids that may be the same as me and give them opportunities that I didn't get. Yeah. So that was really important for me after I came out of school. But yeah. Yeah, cool.
SPEAKER_01What about life school things? So there's life schools that you've had to figure out for yourself that really Yeah, probably just I'm trying to think um just probably different social things as well.
SPEAKER_00Like, because it's funny, you go in from interacting with kids that are your same age to workplace where it's like I'm the youngest, so like up to I don't know, like 60 year olds, so it's quite different. Like interacting with adults, how they act. I also yeah, sometimes still seeing that those, the adults that are older, still act like um girls from high school. That's really interesting. Yeah, because I'm like, I'll thought they'll be over, but I guess not. In terms of what do you mean? What what are they doing? Just being rude and you know, still fighting over silly things that they could talk about instead of like just I don't know, I've not been involved in it, but just seeing it in some tape and seeing it in the workplace and stuff sometimes. Not so much the workplace I'm in, but like even like I don't know, just in general, like different personalities of people clashing a lot. Yeah, interesting. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Okidox, what would you like to say to teachers, leaders, curriculum designers, and school policymakers?
SPEAKER_00I know it's hard to like be aware of everyone, and I totally get that, but the small changes you can make make a massive impact, and please change, or whatever you can do to help kids that learn differently, because there's not enough resources for kids who learn differently, especially in the older year levels, like it's all taught the same, and that's when that's when I really start to struggle. So making it more open for kids who learn different ways, getting more um like kinesthetic, like visual auditory, trying to get all of it more into one instead of just having one learning style, which is usually you know, visual and auditory, but it's more your reading and stuff like that. So more learning styles are needed. Also, though like a lot of teachers have really helped me, but also just listen to the kids and believe them. Like you're gonna have kids that are telling lies because you know they want special attention, but 90% of the time these kids actually help so believe them instead of just pushing your mother to the side and saying, I don't believe you, like that kind of thing. Believe us.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah, that's a really powerful message. Having talked today about it, do you still think that your 13 years at school-based education were well spent?
SPEAKER_00I think they were. I think as I've been saying, like you need to learn how to read, write, math, all those kind of things, because else you won't be able to function properly as an adult. I think things could have been a bit different, which would have made it a bit easier for me, but overall they were well spent. Yeah, cool. And what's next for jazz? Well, right there, just working at the um primary school, thinking about going back to uni um to be an occupational therapist or physiotherapist, something in that field in the next couple of years. So, yeah, that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, amazing. Yeah. Sounds incredible. Thanks for talking today. Thanks for having me. The main message I heard in Jazza's story is that adjustments are not optional. They are part of teaching responsibly. ATSEL, the Australian Institute of Teaching and School Leadership, standard number one, know students and how they learn. 1.1, the physical, social, and intellectual characteristics of students. 1.5, differentiate teaching to meet the specific needs of students across the full range of abilities, and 1.6 strategies to support full participation of students with disability. These standards are relevant for all teachers across Australia. While all teachers know this, there is a lot going on that makes it tricky to do. The teacher who had Jazz repeatedly read CVC, consonant vowel consonant words like dog on cards outside the classroom probably felt they were providing for her needs. Even though we can now hear that this was not what Jazz needed and negatively impacted her sense of self as a potentially competent learner. There is no blame or judgment here. It is also tricky for teachers to skill up in all the various ways learners need adjustments and how to serve them best. Professional learning around this takes time to acquire and tends to be focused on the learning adjustment or well-being coordinators in the schools. Dyslexia is just one of many specific needs students might present. Then there is the crowded nature of the curriculum which tends to weigh on teachers. Generally, teachers feel very responsible for delivering or touching on all of the knowledge and skills itemized. As we barrel through this, time to adjust so that students have access to the full learning just sometimes feels like how? So in addition to the very practical suggestions Jazz offered regarding adjustments that made a real difference to her, the message to us in school-based education was very clear. Believe the students when they tell you their needs. Surely we can all at least do that. Thank you again, Jazz, for sharing your story. So I especially appreciate her willingness to sit with her nerves so educators can hear her important messages. And I thank you, the listener, for giving 13 Years Well Spent the podcast your time. If you found it interesting, please let others know about it too. What in this episode resonated for you? What actions might you take as a result? I warmly invite educators or anyone to share their thoughts by emailing 13eurswellspent at gmail.com. That's 13 as a word, not a numeral, and all lowercase no spaces. Also, if you are between 18 and 30 ish and would be willing to share your story, please also get in touch via email. Thank you for listening. I hope you tune into the next episode too. Bye for now.